Didi Kirsten Tatlow – New York Times – Wednesday, 18 December 2013 (originally published 17 Dec)

Women formed a human pyramid in front of the Zhejiang Provincial Government office in Hangzhou last week calling for equal economic rights. Image: New York Times

The middle-aged farming women forming a human pyramid in front of the Zhejiang Provincial People’s Government headquarters in Hangzhou last week constituted a small protest that pointed to a big problem: persistent economic and political discrimination against women in rural China, they said.

More specifically, said one of the women, who were from the prosperous provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, they were being denied titles to land and housing and, often, financial compensation for land taken by the state for development.

“The state compensates the men, but not the women,” one of the protesters from Jiangsu, surnamed Shan, said by telephone from Hangzhou . . .